


i can see you awake anytime in my head

by kaermorons



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Curses, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia Whump, Hurt/Comfort, Illusions, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Soul Bond, Temporary/Believed Character Death, Time Loop, Wraith Jaskier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2020-03-07
Packaged: 2021-02-19 13:14:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22978258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaermorons/pseuds/kaermorons
Summary: Geralt supposed that even in death, Jaskier couldn’t be a one-note song.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 8
Kudos: 226





	i can see you awake anytime in my head

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Desert Song by My Chemical Romance
> 
> _Well tonight, will it ever come?  
>  Spend the rest of your days rockin' out just for the dead  
> Well tonight, will it ever come?  
> I can see you awake anytime in my head_

Geralt awoke in a small village. His swords were at his back, but he felt a heavy weight over his eyes, compressing all of his body as if he were a few leagues underwater. As if in a dream, he stood, looking around. The village seemed to shimmer, not every building quite grounded in reality. This was not a place he readily recognized, and the unease only grew. Something haunted this place.

As he paced through the rough streets, weaving through empty, abandoned houses, he heard weeping. It was not that of a woman, but laced with aching and sorrow all the same. Geralt turned a corner and came upon a square, abandoned market stalls full of rotting food surrounding the edges like barricades. One lone figure lay resting against a long-dried fountain, weeping into the basin. Their clothes, obviously once fine and detailed, were tattered, and their skin was pale and sallow, arms too emaciated to be human. A crown of dry, viney flowers wrung their head like a wreath.

Geralt drew his sword, and at the sound, the figure wept louder. Suddenly, the thing’s head turned, and Geralt saw it was—

Jaskier. His jaw hung, stripped of flesh, down against his chest, and his tongue lolled out onto his neck, rotten and torn apart. Those eyes, so full of light, were a blood-ringed gray now, the blue sucked away with his life. Rot infected all the skin it could get at, but his hair still maintained that same rumpled look that Geralt frequently dreamed about. Hands that Geralt knew could never hurt another were now bony claws, painted in dried blood and flesh.

The sorrowful weeping that had captured Geralt’s attention was gone now, turned to uncontrolled, screaming rage.

The wraith descended upon the Witcher.

There was a panic in the way the wraith moved, like it hadn’t wanted to get up from the fountain. He wanted to cut off his own ears so he would not have to hear the voice, the one that sang no songs but screams. Distantly, Geralt was aware of his own voice screaming Jaskier’s name, trying to sway the wraith this way or that.

All that was left of the bard he knew was pain and wailing despair. He knew wraiths were unnatural, created by violent ends, and he didn’t want to think of how Jaskier may have met his own, but he had to find whatever tied him to this earth, his remains, and…

And burn them.

Geralt adjusted his hand on his sword and cast out with Yrden, effectively trapping Jaskier and slowing him down while Geralt looked around for anything out of place that Jaskier would be trapped to. “Nothing, there’s nothing.” Geralt’s head snapped up. He’d never heard a wraith speak actual words before, and definitely not something he’d just been thinking about. He met those bloody eyes again, a little blue back in them. This wasn’t a regular wraith after all. Geralt supposed that even in death, Jaskier couldn’t be a one-note song. Jaskier was still in there, somewhere, still conscious.

“Jaskier?” Geralt asks, looking up at the trapped, floating wraith.

“Nothing, trapping, nothing,” Jaskier cried, voice broken and horrible. Geralt steeled himself, and swung his sword true. The dying cries of the wraith Jaskier followed him into darkness.

* * *

Geralt awoke in a small village. His swords were at his back, but there was a heavy weight over his eyes and body. He looked around. This place was familiar, but that thought left him uneasy. Haunted. There was a wraith here. A few buildings were gone from the last time Geralt had seen the place. He walked around, and heard weeping.

This time, he knew it would be Jaskier before the wraith looked up. He cast Yrden on the creature, his friend, once more. “Stay there.” Geralt rasped, walking the perimeter of the town square. Jaskier’s howls of anger and pain beat against his back like a bitter wind.

Again, there was nothing. The fountain in the center of the square wasn’t deep enough to hide anything that could have been significant to Jaskier, and he couldn’t see his lute anywhere. “Where’s your lute, Jaskier?” Geralt shouted over his screams.

“GONE! Gone, go, you go, nothing, nothing…”

The sword swung true once more, and the darkness took him again.

* * *

_ Please just let him go… he wouldn’t do anything to you if you just let him go... _

_ You misunderstand my intentions, bard. A Witcher would kill anyone to save his own skin, even if they were a wraith. _

_ Please, please, please… _

* * *

Geralt awoke in a small village. His swords were at his back, along with a heavy weight in his heart. He knew why he was here. He had to kill a wraith.

That wraith was Jaskier. Jaskier, or this wraith of Jaskier’s soul, said there were no items or remains of his human body, or at least screamed as much. Geralt knew he had to defeat the wraith, but every time, there were more moments of panicked lucidity to Jaskier’s moans and screeches.

“Who killed you, Jaskier?” Geralt demanded, looking up at Jaskier, violet dots of light holding him in place.

“NOT… DEAD…” The wraith howled.

“You’re a wraith, of course you’re dead.” Geralt snapped.

“Dead… dead… soon…”

The sword fell.

* * *

_ I mean nothing to him, why would you do this? _

_ Soul binding is a complicated magic, bard. I don’t expect you to understand. _

_ You’ll have the blood of two on your hands. You’re a monster. _

_ And you think he’s any better? _

* * *

Geralt awoke in a small village. He had to kill a wraith. That wraith was Jaskier.

He searched every little house and hovel he could see, avoiding the town square where he knew things would end just the same as they had before, and before, and before. With a frustrated shout, he ceded the point that there were no clues that would break him from this.

The wraith was panting. He looked weak, trembling. He even floated slower and lower to the ground, deflated.

Geralt apologized every time the blade fell after then.

* * *

_ When does it end? When will he kill you for real? _

Anger. Frustration.

_ I don’t know, I don’t know… _

Sadness. Fatigue.

_ He will kill you every time, bard. Accept your fate, let go of your precious soul. He doesn’t care. _

_ He doesn’t care… _

* * *

Geralt awoke in a small village. His swords were at his back, but they were nowhere near as heavy as the knot in his gut. He felt poisoned, woozy, moving in a dream. There were no buildings, just barriers. He had to kill Jaskier. He was killing Jaskier.

The loud, mournful cries into the fountain faded into tired sniffles and whimpers. Geralt, seeing at both times a wraith and his tired, weakened bard, his Jaskier, drew his sword. He didn’t bother casting Yrden. The wraith did not move on him.

Jaskier looked up, horrible tongue lolling to the side, eyes piercing blue-gray-blood-red. “Geralt.” he croaked, voice moving like bones over gravel. “Geralt, ‘m sorry.”

The sword dropped from Geralt’s hands, clattering noiselessly to the cobbles. Somewhere, high, high above, an indignant shriek sounded, a dragon’s roar, but Geralt could only fall to his knees before Jaskier, crawling forward.

“Can’t do this anymore. Can’t do this to you.” Geralt was crying, he was sobbing harder than he ever had in his life. “Can’t lose you again.”

The wraith reached out with a hand that phased between illusion and reality, bone to hand to bone to flesh to hand once more, and touched his cheek. Geralt let out a pained, high noise of agony. He began to beg. “Just end me. I cannot see you, hear you die again. You are dying before me, dying by me.”

The wraith let out a mournful noise, howling at the roar above them.

The square, the cobbles, the fountain faded away as Geralt bared his neck, waiting for the end.

* * *

Geralt awoke in a large room. It was full of theatrical props, alchemical devices, and potion-making products. His head swam as he looked around. There was a chair, and in that chair, pale and sallow, was Jaskier, head bowed forward, shaking and sobbing softly. Geralt was not restrained for very much longer, and crossed the room to his bard. “Jaskier, Jaskier…” his tongue felt heavy in his mouth. Jaskier looked up, and those eyes were bloodshot and clear blue, perfect blue.

A sharp sigh of relief and hope surged from Geralt’s chest, sputtering past his lips as he held his bard in his arms.

“You  _ horrible _ beast!” an angry voice from above shouted. There, on a catwalk, above the theatre, was a mage, dressed in black, tattered robes. He howled monstrous insults at the two of them, and Geralt’s soul filled with rage and a hint of fear he knew was not his own. This man had been torturing Jaskier for gods knew how long. Geralt felt his hand cast Aard on its own, pushing the surprised mage off the catwalk, tumbling several stories to the ground, where he lay crumpled and silent, dead as he should be.

Geralt lifted his bard into his arms. Jaskier wasn’t exactly aware of what was happening, but still nuzzled his face into Geralt’s neck. Geralt carried him like a bride, a child, something precious, as they escaped. They made their way out into the sunshine, and Geralt fell to his knees once more for Jaskier, laying them out a safe distance from the abandoned theatre building.

The sun soaked into them for several minutes, warming bones that felt cold as graves. “Jas…” Geralt murmured. He could sense no injuries on him, but judging by the powers the mage had used, and the faint memory of a voice muttering  _ soul binding _ bouncing around his skull, Jaskier may have been injured far more than Geralt himself could heal on his own.

So Geralt scooped him back up, holding him in his lap, keeping him close the way he could not in that illusion, in that nightmare. Jaskier breathed in Geralt’s neck, slow and steady. Geralt touched every part of Jaskier that he could, willing a response from the younger man.

“You did it.” Jaskier rasped, after a few hours. “You saved us.”

Geralt was not convinced of that. How long would Jaskier be like this, broken and hollow? A husk?

And would Jaskier ever forgive him?

* * *

As they rested, something strange seemed to happen. Jaskier began to warm up from the frigid temperature he’d been held at, and not from shared body heat. Geralt felt exhausted constantly, but Jaskier seemed to only get better from their continued closeness. Geralt stroked his hair as he slept in his arms, murmuring apologies and requests for forgiveness every so often.

At sunset, they walked back into the theatre together to search for their things and really make sure the mage was dead. Jaskier’s hands shook around a torch lighting his way, but the thin tendrils of fear that Geralt could feel were now wrapped in courage.

“He soul-bound us.” Jaskier said after verifying the mage was dead, shrugging his clothes on slowly, carefully. “I understand if you want to part ways—” his voice cracked on the end, and Geralt’s eyes snapped to his.

“No.” Geralt said, with finality. “We were bound by Destiny before this, having some stupid fucking mage just put words and magic to it isn’t changing anything. You’re probably only healing because my Witcher’s healing is bound to you now.” Geralt’s logic didn’t seem to sway Jaskier’s despair.

“He wanted to prove a point.” Jaskier whispered. Geralt approached, taking the torch from him.

“He thought I wouldn’t die to save you.” Geralt said. Jaskier looked up, vulnerability back in those eyes. “He thought you weren’t bound to my soul to begin with, that I wouldn’t have sacrificed everything in the universe for you.” Jaskier swallowed, tears filling his eyes, mouth forming soundlessly over Geralt’s name. “He wasn’t aware that the little hole in my armor was named Jaskier.” Geralt moved his hand up to Jaskier’s face, holding him, similar to the way that wraith version of himself had reached out, in the end.

“If I’m the hole in your armor, you’re all of mine.” Jaskier said, voice wobbling. It pulled at a string in Geralt’s heart, the string he now recognized was connected to Jaskier, irrevocably. “You’ve always protected me, body...and soul.” The second part was a little more recent, which made them both smile sadly at one another.

“And I always will.” Geralt held him close, and pressed a kiss to Jaskier’s head, mind an endless string of vows to protect, to stay, to love in the ways a Witchers normally forbade themselves from doing.

The two, soul-bound, walked out of the theater and into the night, never once straying far from the other.


End file.
